One competitor’s car expired in an earlier Touring Car Masters race that left marshals to mop up the slippery fluid from the back straight all the way back to the pits.
Bags of coconut husk-based oil-eater were poured across the circuit, leaving a big brown mess behind.
The subsequent V8 SuperUtes race was cancelled amid fears the track’s condition was too poor to race on.
The clean up continued before the Supercars race, which was delayed by 20 minutes. When the 81-lapper eventually began, debris from the clean up was sent skyward.
Race winner Feeney said he was nearly caught out by the condition of the circuit.
“I nearly speared off at Turn 6 on the first lap,” said Feeney in the post-race press conference.
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“[Driving Standards Advisor Craig] Bairdo came down to us on the grid and wanted to speak to us and get our thoughts.
“To be honest, I got pretty loose on the out-lap crossing over it at the last corner and they floated the idea of maybe a Safety Car start, which, yeah, it’s not great for TV, but maybe it’s good to try and spread it out.
“But we all got through it fine so it’s good in that sense, but it’s not ideal to start one of your biggest races of the year with the track covered in oil.
“We need to try and find a better solution to fixing it.
“I mean, that’s a one-off, the amount of oil that went down. What they’re spreading over the track just wasn’t doing it, and it’s a mixture of water as well.
“It was tricky out there. As I said, nearly speared off on the first lap, but we all survived, so that’s the main thing.
“We’ve seen at Perth this year, the clean-up didn’t suffice. We need to try and get a little bit better solution if we can.”
Anton De Pasquale, who finished second to Feeney in the top Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro, said the solution to dry the oil wasn’t ideal but not the end of the world.
“It was pretty sketchy for probably two or three laps until obviously everyone ran through it, and then it cleared up,” said De Pasquale.
“But you can see it coming off Broc’s car pretty aggressively when he rolled down into it for the first time.
“So where I was, it was a lot easier than where he was, because I could see what was going to happen.
“What do you do? I guess. It’s really difficult, but it did clear up pretty quick, so that’s good. It’s really hard when, obviously you have categories before and stuff, things are going to happen.
“So I don’t think you can change the world based off one of these incidents. Maybe just chuck a few more cars out there earlier.”
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